The South of France [recto] c. 1930

Curator: This artwork is titled "The South of France" and was created around 1930 by Jan Matulka. It's primarily a watercolor, but you can see evidence of drawing as well. Editor: Ah, the South of France, filtered through a modernist lens. I’m struck by its gentle, almost melancholic atmosphere, those pastel hues feel very soothing, like a faded memory. It almost looks like cubism went on vacation. Curator: I think Matulka really captures the essence of a European cityscape here, that particular blend of buildings and nature, especially those cypress trees, those ubiquitous towers, it’s rendered in such an elegant way. Editor: True, but it's how the everyday infrastructure features, that leaning telephone pole on the left almost becoming a structural support—for both the picture and our contemporary reliance on networked communication—that fascinates me. Look at how those ceramic roof tiles get painstakingly reproduced. Do you think Matulka meant to imply an artist as someone also performing repetitive manual labor? Curator: Maybe! Though I'm more inclined to see it as an effort to harmonize industry and nature— finding a certain beauty in both. There’s a dialogue happening on that picture plane between geometrical and organic forms that reflects modern life, after all. Editor: Possibly. And maybe the interplay of forms touches on that conflict, you’re right. Yet I can’t shake the idea that the telephone pole is an element of constructed labor – the materiality of modern communications pressing on nature. Still, those colors – it has the texture and visual vocabulary of so many seaside landscapes of the early 20th century! Curator: Absolutely, and there’s a sense of light there which makes you feel like you could step right in. In fact, it has all the familiarity and all the allure of the South, don't you think? Editor: I do, and by zooming in to examine materials – whether watercolors or roof tiles -- we can approach the making of this place itself, can't we? We're left pondering how much is Matulka’s invention and how much existed for him, ready to be distilled.